Gun research being kept in the Dark Ages

In the 1980s and 1990s, researchers studied what happens when people buy guns to protect themselves and their families. You might think they'd be safer, but studies concluded it's actually far more likely that a gun kept in the home would be involved in a suicide, a domestic homicide or an accidental shooting than to shoot an intruder.

Those findings predictably enraged gun groups such as the NRA, which responded by attacking the research and the researchers. Since 1996, under the influence of gun groups, Congress has essentially shut down government-funded research about guns, taking away money from a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention division that funded firearms studies and forbidding any government-funded investigation that would "advocate or promote gun control." The result: Much of the policy debate over guns has taken place in an information vacuum. It's time to start filling that void.

In January, President Obama decided that 17 years of willful ignorance was enough. As part of his response to the shooting of 20 first-graders in Newtown, Conn., the month before, Obama ordered the CDC to restart firearms studies. The White House rightly reasons that honest research doesn't advocate or promote anything, so the congressional language shouldn't be an obstacle.

To make smart decisions, citizens and policymakers could use simple facts. For example, how many guns are there in the USA? The guess is 300 million, but no one really knows. How many firearms are bought without a background check? The most common estimate is 40 percent, but the number could be half that.

Other subjects are more complex. For instance, do violent video games influence or desensitize spree killers? And how often does the mere display of a weapon - rather than the shooting of it - deter crime?

More research also is needed into "smart gun" technology, which could make firearms safer without making them unusable in an emergency, and into whether the sort of tough, post-Newtown gun laws passed in Connecticut, New York and Colorado are making citizens of those states safer.

The individual right to own firearms has been upheld twice by the Supreme Court, and Americans strongly support it. No research is going to change that. But just because guns are legal doesn't mean they're safe.

The constant toll of accidental shootings, particularly of children, is grim proof that guns are a danger to public health. Even the most zealous gun advocates know firearms are dangerous, which is why the NRA has for decades spent significant time and resources promoting gun safety.

Congress, which is nearing decisions on how to fund the government next year, would do well to provide money for even-handed gun research - and avoid writing new language to continue the decade-plus Dark Ages on this issue.

The answer to controversial research isn't to shut it down. It's to do more of it.

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Gun research being kept in the Dark Ages

In the 1980s and 1990s, researchers studied what happens when people buy guns to protect themselves and their families.